THE GINGERBREAD MANAGER

Once upon a time, there was an elderly retiree, barely endowed with adequate finance to survive the week, let alone the fiscal quarter, but among whose core competences included the fabrication of gingerbread mini-figures which she pre-planned to consume in tandem with her long-term partner, going forward.

One day, while the elderly retiree, female, (a.k.a ERF) was up-scaling in her rocker, shooting the blue-sky, she fancied that she detected an odd noise coming from the oven. Fairyland performance indicators dictated she investigate further, going forward.

- Assistance! Assistance! I require assistance in this space, looped back a voice from the interior of the ageing Aga.

Mother ERF's ginger confection was evidently human-type capital in crisis. Opening the stove door, the incentivised elderly service provider discovered her product launch had sufficient proactive functionality to conversate. A cinnamon stick had attached itself to his thorax, and sprinkling its folkloric magic had miraculously materialised a half-baked talking gingerbread boy with a Masters in Business Administration, a high-altitude overview and enough bandwith to capture the vertical market, going forward.

Blind to the unrestricted opportunities this serendipitous synergy had blended into the marketing mix, Mother ERF's silo-ed thinking was focussed on immediate consumption rather than the strategic staircase, up which the gingerbread MBA was pre-fated to hop from the get-go. Had she not been living the values of the impoverished fishwife, she would have got her fingers down the throat of the ginger nodule and grasped the granularity of the situation. However, bereft of 360 degree thinking, of the kind that separates the rhizome from the ginger root, she was destined to let the lemongrass grow too long on this one, going forward.

Wiping her hands on her holey apron, she placed the bipedal biscuit gingerly on the rustic table and stood agape, arms akimbo, frowning like a fairy faced with paradigm shiftage. The gingerbread youth straightened his marzipan tie and gave her the heads up on her swift intervention, going forward.

- Much obliged to you Ms, interfaced the gingerbread manager to Mother ERF, who had the sensation of being seriously out of the loopage.

- Don't mention it, love, communicated the ERF.

- Mother ERF... you don't mind if I call you MERF, do you? Look MERF, clearly we need to tic-tac here. Seems to me you misoverestimated the ETA on this project, not to mention failing to feed the product through the sales and delivery pipeline.

- I only had enough to make one biscuit for me and my old man, son.

- Give me some context here. Is it your intention to pursue short-term objectives and chase me down the street as per? Or would it not be preferable to leverage our talents and go forward together, out-foxing our competitors and giving the key stakeholders an option to buy into something more long-term?

- I'm not sure what you mean, young man. I don't...

- What I mean is, instead of targeting the domestic market, have you sounded out the emerging vertical? Maybe even go down the road of divesting, outsourcing the pre-preparation to the Far East, freeing up you and your partner to focus around marketing and procurement. Production is so labour intensive. Wouldn't you like more time to yourself MERF?

- But...

- Time is the new black. A luxury we can all enjoy. Time to kick back on the old rocker and watch the coinage roll in. Looking around, I'd say you need all the financial leverage you can get. You ought to be pushing the envelope here. We're talking low-hanging fruit cake. The brand alone's got to be worth squillions. 'S all about branding these days MERF.

- Branding?...

- Look, without the Gingerbread Man brand, I'm just another runaway lippy cookie with an attitude problem... Problem? Did I say problem? I meant challenge... Listen, my oven door is open on this... We need to look under the bonnet... Let's deep-dive an ideas shower and touch base offline... If you wrongside the demographic, then nobody's coming to the party... You got to develop a high-level overview... I'm committed 120%... the human touch MERF... need to connect ear-to-ear with the Chinese... and also, in addition...

As Mother ERF listened, her voluble creation was so intent on feeding it back, she was able to edge towards him, clutching her gingham dishcloth between the thumb and forefingers of both gnarled hands like an arthritic matador, going forward.

Before he could say "You can't have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music", the cloth had cascaded down over the anthropomorphic gingerbread figurine so that not only was the hungry housewife able to furnish herself and her husband with a nutritious appetising snack, midmorning, but, more to the point, she also managed to shut the little gobby fucker up, going forward.



THE END (of capitalism in fairyland.)